If you like a bit of Centaur astrology there’s an interesting opposition across the nodes at the moment. Yesterday the Sun exactly conjoined the Centaur Elatus on the South Node, opposing Chiron and asteroid Damocles on the North Node.
The Chiron-Elatus opposition is a significant outer planet aspect of our time. These two Centaurs have been in opposition since 2003 and the aspect will continue until 2015, so transiting all the way from mid Capricorn-Cancer to late Pisces-Virgo (aspect history here). It’s obviously now emphasised having hit the Nodes and the Sun. Chiron has an orbital period of just over 50 years, Elatus 40 years, and this is their only period of opposition between the years 1500 and 2099 (which is as far as my ephemeris goes at the moment).
There are some confused versions of the Elatus myth around, probably because there are at least six characters named Elatus in Greek myth (ref), including one Lapith prince (father of Caenea/Caeneus) and one Centaur, both of whom are mentioned in the stories of the Lapiths and the Centaurs. Only one of them was a Centaur though, and we know which one the discoverers intended by their own description of Elatus here:
The name of the centaur Elatus is associated with woodlands and means “fir man”, perhaps because he used to pull up whole fir trees and use them as weapons. During a battle with Hercules, Elatus was killed by a poisoned arrow that passed through his arm and continued to wound Chiron in the knee.
So he was directly, if unconsciously, involved in the incident where Chiron got his famous wound, which happened during the fight that all the Centaurs piled into with Heracles over Pholus’s wine; Elatus was the guy Heracles was aiming for. Neither of them intended to harm Chiron. The version of the story which specifies Elatus as the Centaur involved is the one by Apollodorus:
Herakles asked for wine, but Pholos said that he was afraid to open the cask which was owned jointly by the Kentauroi. But Herakles told him not to worry, and opened the cask himself. Shortly thereafter, picking up the smell of the wine, the Kentauroi appeared at Pholos� cave, armed with rocks and clubs of silver fir. The first two who ventured in, by name Ankhios and Agrios, Herakles turned back with a volley of fire-brands; he sent arrows after the others and chased them as far as Malea. There they took refuge with Kheiron, who, after the Lapiths had driven him from Mount Pelion, settled on Malea. Herakles let loose an arrow at the Kentaroi as they huddled round Kheiron, which penetrated the arm of Elatos and landed in Kheiron�s knee. In horror Herakles ran to him, pulled out the arrow and dressed the wound with a salve that Kheiron handed him. The festering wound was incurable, however, and Kheiron moved into his cave, where he yearned for death, but could not die because he was immortal.
Looking at the Elatus discovery chart, you could say that fogginess and confusion abound; Jupiter in the last degree of Aries exactly squares Neptune at 1+ Aquarius, which is exactly sextile Mercury in the last degree of Scorpio. The anaretic degrees presumably emphasise the hard-to-get-a-handle-on feeling in an already cloudy atmosphere.
Working with Elatus in charts, the art of communication is a theme commonly picked up by astrologers for this object, and that anaretic Scorpio Mercury, sextile Neptune, seems to sum up the challenges involved. Centaurs tend to be about deep transformative processes of learning, evolution and integration, usually involving challenges. In its highest form I think Elatus is about communicating that which is deeply felt and comes through you, echoing the arrow passing straight through him in the myth, changing him as it does so. This is really all you can do with anything that comes from Neptune, where words are inadequate. The struggle comes when you try to do it the other way round; the frustrating process of grasping for the right words which seem out of reach, struggling to express yourself, not making yourself understood etc. You could look at it as a lesson about getting your ego out of the way, in this case to allow inspiration to come, for which you can take no credit. It seems to me that all the Centaurs have this same basic lesson, taught through their very different paths. I think Elatus could relate to learning through the whole creative process in that way, and the phenomenon of affecting others by it in ways you’ll never know. Overall, Elatus reminds me of this collage by Via Keller, What Words Can’t Say.
Looking at famous charts featuring Elatus, we can see the whole spectrum of the learning curve; a few people who are known (fairly or not) for their ineptitude with words, a few poets, and a lot of politicians. Pallas is on the North Node of the discovery chart with Elatus himself squaring it, and varying degrees of success with political rhetoric does seem to be a common manifestation of his process.
I’ve posted a page here with some examples of charts where Elatus makes exact aspects within one degree to the inner planets, angles or nodes.
Thanks for a great Astrology article, love reading these types of things